I don't like vegetables.

[lee1203]

Is there any way I can learn to like them? Here's what I will eat:

Corn
Peas
Salad (with ranch dressing and without too much other "stuff")
Potatoes
Cooked carrots

And yes, I know some of those are techincally not vegetables, but let's overlook that for now, shall we? What can I do to increase the variety of veggies that taste at least half-way decent to me? Is there a sauce or something I can fix to pour over them, or a special way to cook them, or what? I have a 6.5 month old that I want to do baby-led weaning with, but it seems stupid to fix veggies just for her (I'm too lazy to do so anyway) and quite frankly our diet is not infant friendly. And I'm tired of being a picky eater.

So hit me with some suggestions, you wise women of the Nutrition forum. Anything but green beans, that is, those literally make me gag. Actually, other veggies do too sometimes, but green beans are definitely the worst offenders.

[fresh_veggie]

Lightly steaming preserves the nutrients the best, if they must be cooked at all. Lightly steaming even makes some nutrients more bio-available that if the veggies are eaten raw! (Broccoli, for example).

Why don't you put together a big stir-fry? That way maybe you can add a small amount of noodles...but you can use crunchy sweet snow peas, onions, carrots, zucchini, squash, bell peppers, broccoli, cabbage, a dash of soy-sauce or Bragg's liquid aminos...whatever suits your fancy. Maybe if you overload your system all at once, it will work Seriously though, this stuff if good.

I'm making myself hungry!!

[BetsyS]

I like vegetables (and always have), so I don't know if these suggestions would work for you or not.

Cut up raw veggies with ranch dip. Yeah, there is dip involved. But, it's better than not eating them. We usually do bell peppers (the red/yellow/orange are sweeter than green), broccoli, cauliflower, snow peas, carrots, celery, and radishes. But, you can pretty much dip any crunchy veggie, from asparagus to kohlrabi.

Broccoli is really good in noodles with peanut sauce. Do you like Chinese/Asian flavors? If so, this is a really easy Americanized lo mein recipe that has broccoli and mushrooms in it. http://www.momadvice.com/blog/2007/0...ge-day-one.htm

A farmers' market. The kind where farmers pull up their trucks and sell out of the back. In time, you will get to know the farmers, and you'll trust them when they say, "hey, buy this today. The season is only 2 weeks long, and it tastes good. This is how I cook it." I love that community aspect, we have fun as a family going every Saturday morning, and I love trying new things. I'm a sucker for "new", though, so this might or might not work for you. I've had a few disasters, but not many, and with the internet, you can get directions on how to cook anything.

One that has helped me (and I've finally convinced my mom, who is happier, too!) is to learn to add veggies to everything. Everything. If you have food that you like, you can add veggies to just change the flavor a little bit. That might be a good way to transition for you.

Say you like mac and cheese. Well, the next time you make it, you puree cauliflower and add it to the sauce. Yes, it does taste a little different. But, not much, and it's close enough to the original that you'll like it. And voila, you're eating another veggie. Another good one is small cubes of eggplant added to spaghetti sauce. Or greens added to any Mexican food. Say you are making burritos. Add a little raw spinach to the burritos instead of lettuce. That sort of thing.

Oh, and sweet potatoes. They are either a love it or hate it veggie, I've seen. But, like 85% of people love them. I bet you would. YOu just put it in the oven for an hour or so, until tender. They are so sweet and good. And, if you have a sweet tooth, you can add more brown sugar, butter, and cinammon to them to make them really sweet.

[Therese's Mommy]

I would suggest that whatever you try be fresh, not canned and not frozen. I love veggies and will eat them in any form for the most part but have recently gotten away from eating any frozen veggies and now realize that I love them even more :

Here are some favorites at my house. Take asparagus, trim off tough ends, place in broiler safe pan, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and broil for about 10 minutes or so. Shake the pan about halfway through. These are so much better if they are slightly undercooked as opposed to overcooked. So, if you are unsure if they are done just take them out, they will be better. I would say that even if you steam asparagus you want to just lightly steam it, if it is overcooked the texture and flavor are not as nice.

I also love dark leafy greens sauteed in olive oil with a little salt and ALOT of garlic. To start you may want to stay away from things like rappi and dandelion greens as they can be a bit bitter, but I love them. Some good ones are swiss chard, spinach, and kale.

Lightly steamed broccoli on noodles with some olive oil, salt, and crushed red pepper flakes.

Good luck :

Beth

ETA: I just glanced at the above response and was reminded about sweet potatoes. We LOVE sweet potato fries here. Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into fries. Toss with olive oil and put on a lightly oiled cookie sheet. Bake at 425 until done. They are really good if some on the edge burn a little I eat them plain, but dd loves them with ketchup or A1 sauce.

[avendesora]

Maybe you could try "Deceptively Delicious" for yourself.

Lightly steaming is healthiest, but roasted is the tastiest.

Aven

[pear-shaped]

I hate vegetables too! Well, I hate them less now than I used too, but given the choice, I will always pick something else over vegetables.

I know that steaming is the healthiest way to prepare them, but I can't eat them that way. My philosophy is that eating vegetables prepared in a less healthy manner is better than eating none at all. So I roast them, braise them, grill them and sauté them.

Have you ever tried squash? Zucchini is really not that hard to eat. I've grown accustomed to eating it grilled with a little salt, but I had to start out baking it gratin style with layers of bread crumbs and parmigiano cheese, and drizzling with a little olive oil. Winter squash (obviously not in season now) can be prepared similarly. It is also delicious just roasted. I really like cheese so I tend to add it generously when cooking vegetables. I love gratins because I can add lots of cheese. I can even eat green beans if I sauté them in butter and sprinkle some parmigiano on them.

I like braising things because they take on the flavor of the liquid you use. I braise peas in white wine and broth. I always braise carrots. I don't really like them any other way. Do you like onions? If you like their flavor, add them to the vegetables you cook. I have some issues with texture, so I chop onions very fine, and braising them together with peas or carrots makes them so soft you barely notice them. Do onions count as a vegetable? I feel like they should.

Do you like pasta? A pp mentioned cubes of eggplant in tomato sauce, that is a great idea. Olives are good too, and if you have issues with them, chop them up. I can't stand to eat them whole but if they are chopped up they don't bother me too much. Though olives are technically fruit, aren't they? Bolognese is made with carrots and celery in addition to the meat. It can be made with or without tomatoes.

A really tasty way to make vegetables is to do something like chicken and dumplings. I make it with onions, carrots, celery and potatoes. The vegetables take on the flavor of the chicken and the herbs in the recipe. My 17-month-old loves it and I have no issues eating it.

I think what you need to do is find just one way that you really like to prepare a particular vegetable and then just get used to eating it. After a while you'll be able to branch out and eat it in different ways.

Good luck!

[Alyantavid]

I'd try different ways of cooking them.

Like asparagus. I always hated it because we always ate my grandma's way, which was boiled until the poor asparagus was completely dead. Now I eat it roasted with olive oil, salt, pepper and parmesean cheese. Its so good.

Zucchini is another one. I like the stir fry idea too, I love stir fry. Add everything's better with cheese on it!

[journeymom]

Originally Posted by pear-shaped

My philosophy is that eating vegetables prepared in a less healthy manner is better than eating none at all!

Exactly.

Seriously, if a person doesn't like veggies to begin with, telling them about all the nutrition in them isn't helpful. Steamed broccoli served all healthy-like isn't going to win a picky person over to the veg side.

Warm, gooey cheese sauce is WONDERFUL on lots of veggies. Broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, carrots, zucchini.

While you are experimenting feel free to drown your veggies in ranch dressing or butter or cheese sauce or whatnot. Just gradually reduce the amount of sauce.

[aris99]

Some things I do for my ds who has oral aversion and sensory issues...I put dandelion leaves, spinach and carrot juice into smoothies. I put pureed pumpkin and carrot juice (small amounts) into spaghetti sauce for my dd's AND one of my dd's favorite dishes (my eldest dd will not eat any foods of different textures mixed together...sensory issues) is cauliflower and potatoes cooked in tomato soup w/curry. My youngest LOVES little frozen veggies....peas, corn, carrots. How about making veggie soups w/pureed veggies so you can't really taste the ones you don't like? How about juicing? Carrot and apple juice is good

[ZoeyZoo]

I actually like them now but I find them easier to eat when I dice them up tiny and add them to foods I alreay make. They can go into a casserole, dip, spread, pasta, stir fry, etc. If they are dice small you won't even notice most of them.

[lee1203]

Y'all are awesome. I'm definitely going to try some of these recipes.

Originally Posted by fresh_veggie

Maybe if you overload your system all at once, it will work Seriously though, this stuff if good.

Hee! I've thought of that, but honestly I'm so set in my ways I don't think I can eat a big ol' batch of veggies if it's not mainly meat or cheese or pasta in it too.

Originally Posted by BetsyS

Say you like mac and cheese. Well, the next time you make it, you puree cauliflower and add it to the sauce. Yes, it does taste a little different. But, not much, and it's close enough to the original that you'll like it. And voila, you're eating another veggie. Another good one is small cubes of eggplant added to spaghetti sauce. Or greens added to any Mexican food. Say you are making burritos. Add a little raw spinach to the burritos instead of lettuce. That sort of thing.

This could work! Sounds like the stuff from the book aven suggested, huh? I'm not above hiding veggies for myself, although it just seems a little ridiculous for an almost 30-year-old to be doing.

Originally Posted by Therese's Mommy

I would suggest that whatever you try be fresh, not canned and not frozen. I love veggies and will eat them in any form for the most part but have recently gotten away from eating any frozen veggies and now realize that I love them even more :

I want to buy fresh, and better yet from a farmer's market type of place, but I've had to throw out rotten food that we just never got around to eating way too much. I guess I should set my sights as low as possible and just buy ONE item at a time.

Originally Posted by pear-shaped

I hate vegetables too! Well, I hate them less now than I used too, but given the choice, I will always pick something else over vegetables.

I know that steaming is the healthiest way to prepare them, but I can't eat them that way. My philosophy is that eating vegetables prepared in a less healthy manner is better than eating none at all. So I roast them, braise them, grill them and sauté them.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one, and that's what I was figuring as well. Thanks.

Originally Posted by journeymom

Warm, gooey cheese sauce is WONDERFUL on lots of veggies. Broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, carrots, zucchini.

I like cheese. Cheese is good.

Have tried eating raw veggies with ranch dip - can only do so for a little bit. I think it's a texture thing with me too.

Potentially stupid question - I'm hesitant to use all the electricity it takes to heat up the oven just for a few vegetables (have taken to using a George Foreman grill for chicken breasts and the like - so much quicker and easier!). Not to mention that I'm in Texas and it's summer so the less heat the better. Should I invest in a small toaster oven? Would that give me the same results on veggies as the big oven?

ETA: Also, would I be able to give my infant veggies cooked these different ways? Obviously I wouldn't give them to her smothered in cheese or anything like that yet.

[jjawm]

Cheese gives lots of flavor. Also, just adding veggies to casseroles or chicken pot pie can give you a lot. Soups, too.

[laohaire]

In addition to the above, my ideas are:

1) Garden, at least a little. I recall a study that showed that kids ate more vegetables and were more willing to try new ones when they grew the vegetables themselves (with their families). I am sure these effects are not just limited to children. There's something about eating what you grew yourself. Not to mention it's fresher, probably organic, etc.

2) Attitude change. Nope, not criticizing your attitude at all, because I think you're already starting to do this. Until I was 22, I didn't eat vegetables either (probably even less than what you listed). But one day I decided to change the way I saw vegetables. I did one vegetable at a time. I started with cooked spinach, because 1) it's chock full of awesome nutrients and 2) I sort of kind of could tolerate it. Sort of. So I ate it. After eating it about 6 times (maybe twice a week), I got to the point where it was "ok." I was fine eating it but it wasn't exactly yummy. That's already progress.

I agree with the others that you can focus more on how YOU like vegetables rather than how you "should" eat them. Personally, unlike you, I had much better luck with steamed and raw vegetables; I found the boiled and otherwise "overcooked" (in my opinion) veggies yucky. But that's just me.

You could "hide" the vegetables in stuff, but for me, what worked best was to really "confront" the veggies. Then through attitude and exposure (eating something 10 times makes you more likely to like it) I would grow to accepr or even like the vegetable. I think that if I were "hiding" the vegetable, I'd still be sort of dreading it - "Uh-oh, what if I can actually TASTE the squash in the pasta sauce, yuck!"

[cristeen]

Originally Posted by pear-shaped

I know that steaming is the healthiest way to prepare them, but I can't eat them that way. My philosophy is that eating vegetables prepared in a less healthy manner is better than eating none at all. So I roast them, braise them, grill them and sauté them.

Exactly. I don't steam ANYTHING because I just don't care for them steamed. But I'll eat them all sorts of other ways. Roasted - asparagus, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, carrots, sweet potatoes, potatoes, parsnips. Grilled - eggplant, asparagus, green onions, mushrooms, corn, zucchini, tomatoes, broccoli. Sauteed - cabbage, broccoli, peas, corn. Mashed - cauliflower, parsnips, sweet potatoes.

Originally Posted by lee1203

Potentially stupid question - I'm hesitant to use all the electricity it takes to heat up the oven just for a few vegetables (have taken to using a George Foreman grill for chicken breasts and the like - so much quicker and easier!). Not to mention that I'm in Texas and it's summer so the less heat the better. Should I invest in a small toaster oven? Would that give me the same results on veggies as the big oven?

Sure! You can use a George Foreman or a toaster oven either one for grilling or roasting, respectively.

As for dishes to make:
Stuff mushrooms with a blend of bulk sausage and parmesan cheese and maybe some fresh herbs. Toss on the grill, meat side down until crusty, then flip mushroom side down for about a minute or two. These make a great appetizer / light dinner.
If you like mashed potatoes, here are two variants to introduce new flavors: Mix mashed potatoes with mashed (steamed) cauliflower 50/50 - add a little cream cheese to help keep it creamy and whatever other flavors you like in mashed potatoes.
Or mix mashed potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes with a little roasted garlic and parmesan cheese. It sounds kind of weird, but it really is excellent... Here's the recipe, I serve it at Thanksgiving every year.
Roasted parsnips are another good one - If you do half potato and half parsnip, you probably won't be able to tell which is which. Parsnips look like a large white carrot, and are starchy like a potato but sweeter. I don't care for horseradish, but the horseradish sauce in that recipe is really good... but skip it if you like - the veggies are good without it.
For broccoli, I like to cut it in large spears (including a piece of the stem), marinate it in an Italian vinaigrette, toss it with Parmesan cheese and toss it on the grill (the larger the pieces, the less likely you'll have to fish it out of the coals), just until the cheese starts turning brown.
Cabbage - I prefer napa cabbage for this (the long oblong head rather than the round head)... in a large skillet add a healthy amount of butter, and add sliced cabbage and a squeeze of lemon juice. Add more butter if needed, and just keep stirring occasionally (it's okay if it browns, you just want it all to melt). It takes about 20 minutes, but it turns into a pile of almost mash. Stir in some browned ground beef, some chopped onions, garlic, cheese, whatever you like and/or serve it over pasta.

[Liquesce]

Do you have decent library access? You might want to check out Alice Water's Chez Panisse Vegetables. It's an A-Z of vegetables ... general info on how to prepare them each to their best advantage, and a handful of recipes per veggie to get you started. Ordinarily I consider it a little too basic, but I think for someone who might not be sure what to do with some things to make them come out tasty it could be absolutely perfect.

Vegetarian cookbooks would be awesome too -- that way they're usually worked into a broader, more complex dish, not just sitting there on the side waiting to be ignored. Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone maybe (or her other books), or any of Mollie Katzen's books.

[jimblejamble]

My husband isn't a vegetable fan either but I get him to eat them by mixing them with rice and some sort of spice/sauce/seasoning. Some favourites:

Jasmine rice with carrots, onion, peas, corn, brocolli, and a medium-spice curry block. The curry blocks can be found at Asian markets or the foreign section of the grocery store. They come in a big block and I just break off one section and throw it in with the rice and stir it around. I use a rice cooker with a steaming basket that sits on top, so just chop everything up and let it go, and stir the rice every few minutes to make sure the curry mixes in well.

Brown rice with brocolli, carrots, eggplant, mushrooms (he hates mushrooms, I love them, so I just eat his) sesame seeds, and soy sauce. I usually chop up an orange to have on the side.

I've also done vegetable enchiladas and he really liked them. Here is the recipe I use for the enchilada sauce, but I use less water to make it thicker, and I don't dip the tortillas in it (too messy). In each tortilla I put cheese, onion, tomato, olives, avocado, and a little bit of the sauce, then roll it up, layer into a casserole dish, and pour the last of the sauce and a little bit more cheese over.

I love veggies and he thinks veggies are evil and if I weren't in charge of food, he'd be happy eating nothing but meat, cheese, Dorritos, and Mountain Dew for the rest of his life! So I'll compromise and make casseroles every once in a while...

Tater tot casserole. Now usually these are made with tater tots, cream of whatever soup, and ground beef or turkey, and that's it. I do a layer of tots, then mix a few eggs (instead of cream soup) with brocolli, green beans, and cauliflower, sometimes peas, then another layer of tots over the top and some cheese. This is one of his favourites, and it has no meat! I was shocked that he asked for me to make it again the first time I made it...AND he didn't say "This was good but next time can you...?"

Another one he liked was: Brocolli, carrots, onion, mushrooms, and chicken, Cream of Mushroom soup (: I know, I know...I didn't think eggs would be good on that one and it was all I had to work with) with those crispy chow mein noodles on top.

Unfortunately he doesn't like eggs either so omelets are out of the question, but I love them! My favourites:

Tomato, bell pepper, & spinach
Avocado, spinach, & onion
Mushroom & Onion
Or all of the above together

[jimblejamble]

And another! Sorry, I love food! Chili is another way I'm able to get Chris to eat more veggies. I make a vegan version:

Kidney beans 3-4 cups
Tomatoes (1 or 2)
Bell peppers (1 or 2)
Onion (1 large)
Tomato sauce (enough to coat everything but not make it soupy)
Salt, pepper, basil, oregano (just eyeball these, a few dashes of each will do)
Chili powder (also eyeballed...maybe a tablespoon-ish?)
Optional: A few soy meatballs
Let sit in a crockpot for several hours and enjoy!

Aaaand a yummy salad I made recently:
Romaine lettuce
Avocado
Tomato
Bell pepper
Purple onion
Can o' mixed black, pinto, and kidney beans
Squirted with some lemon juice (I think lime would have been better but I didn't have any and was taking this to a party) and garlic salt

[lee1203]

Originally Posted by laohaire

1) Garden, at least a little.
(snip)
You could "hide" the vegetables in stuff, but for me, what worked best was to really "confront" the veggies. Then through attitude and exposure (eating something 10 times makes you more likely to like it) I would grow to accepr or even like the vegetable. I think that if I were "hiding" the vegetable, I'd still be sort of dreading it - "Uh-oh, what if I can actually TASTE the squash in the pasta sauce, yuck!"

I'd love to garden something, but we have three dogs and quite frankly I'm just not willing to spend the time and money it would take to fence off part of the yard for a garden. Not now, anyways... maybe when the freeloader is a little older.

And yes, I agree I need to change my attitude. A few years back I was saying to someone "I don't like (such-and-such)" and it dawned on me that I couldn't remember the last time I ate it. Did I really not like it, or did I just think I didn't like it? Turns out I didn't like it. Hadn't heard the 10 times thing though, so I'll keep trying.

Hiding will be good to get the nutrients in for now, but in the long run, yes, I want to just be able to eat vegetables. It's annoying (and embarrassing) to go out for dinner and have to either really look for something that won't need much modification, or to ask to have a lot of stuff left off. Besides, I want to model good eating habits for my kiddo. Don't want her to be a picky eater if it can be avoided.

Originally Posted by cristeen

Sure! You can use a George Foreman or a toaster oven either one for grilling or roasting, respectively.

Excellent, thanks!

Originally Posted by Liquesce

Do you have decent library access? You might want to check out Alice Water's Chez Panisse Vegetables. It's an A-Z of vegetables ... general info on how to prepare them each to their best advantage, and a handful of recipes per veggie to get you started. Ordinarily I consider it a little too basic, but I think for someone who might not be sure what to do with some things to make them come out tasty it could be absolutely perfect.

I totally need something in the "For Dummies" mindset... will check this out.

Originally Posted by JessicaRenee

My husband isn't a vegetable fan either but I get him to eat them by mixing them with rice and some sort of spice/sauce/seasoning.

Rice! Excellent.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that mushrooms are a no-go. That one is probably partially psychological - I refuse to eat fungus.

[savithny]

A long time ago I read a book by a food writer for (whatever major magazine -- vogue or GQ or something like that).

He talked about how when he got the news he was being assigned to the food beat, his reaction was "But I'm a picky eater." So he read up on food and picky eating and read some research that showed that you need to taste something 5 or 7 times to get used to it. Then he made a list of everything he hated, and ate each of them every day for a week.... now, he eats just about anything.

This fits with my own experience. I was raised by a child of the 50s and 60s. She'd learned meal planning in Home Ec and from her own mother. Every meal had food group representation as well as some attempt to balance for color and attractive plating (ie, no serving beige vegetables with beige main courses).

Coming from that background, when I started to cook for myself, I took mom as a model. Every meal had to have a veggie. It just did. A lot of the time at first it was a scoop of microwaved frozen mixed veggies, but there would be veg (unless the veg was incorporated in the entree as in a casserole or veggies in tacos).

From there, I branched out. I read that I should be eating more cruciferous veggies, so I committed to just doing it. I did like broccoli, but I made myself try kale. And then I just kept cooking it. I didn't like it so much at first, but I didn't HATE it, so I kept eating it. And one day I realized I liked it.

I think the trick is first, to commit to eating them. Second, to find a preparation you like. I agree that while steamed is supposedly healthiest, the actual consumption of them is the important thing, and if that takes cooking them in bacon fat or sprinkling them with cheese - so what? And third - having made the commitment, just keep doing it. Meal planning helps -- it lets you buy veggies to go wtih each meal so you don't waste them, it lets you remember which veggies go with which meals, it lets you spread out the different kinds and colors across your menu.

Personally, I think almost every veggie is palatable cooked in olive oil with lots of garlic and perhaps a bit of lemon juice. So that's how I do them. We eat lots and lots of produce, almost none of it steamed (or if it's steamed, its then dressed with delicious fat and spices).

[journeymom]

I've found that sometimes I just don't like it if I've cooked it. By the time I'm finished cooking some dish -and this applies to all kinds of foods, not just vegetables- I'm sick of it and don't want to eat it.

Flip side of the same coin, I've learned to like some funky stuff in a party atmosphere. Battered and deep fried calamari (let's not be coy, shall we? It's squid.) with aioli sauce was with a group of friends at a nice restaurant. I was so hungry, had already had a glass of wine, and that crunchy, chewy squid was sooooo good! And it was battered, so I didn't have to look closely at the tentacles.

A great discussion got going here at MDC after the movie Ratatouille came out, and someone here shared a recipe for the dish ratatouille. It was just so pretty! But it has egg plant! I hate egg plant! I used to gag on it when I was a kid! I tried it anyway, because like the poster above said, by that time I was pushing myself to try new stuff. I wanted to be like those sophisticated French foodies. So I made it, and it looked appropriately beautiful, and it was delicious. Even the kids liked it, which really boosted my ego.

By the way, there are some wonderful food-oriented movies out there: Ratatuoille, Babette's Feast, Tortilla Soup, I'm sure others here can think of more.

More foodie movies- Chocolate, Eat Drink Man Woman, Like Water for Chocolate

Originally Posted by savithny

Personally, I think almost every veggie is palatable cooked in olive oil with lots of garlic and perhaps a bit of lemon juice. So that's how I do them. We eat lots and lots of produce, almost none of it steamed (or if it's steamed, its then dressed with delicious fat and spices).

Yes, yes, yes.

Don't beat yourself up for not liking veggies. It's a safety mechanism that's simply on over drive a bit, but your body is just protecting itself. You will probably never love a lot of veggies, and that's just fine. Just keep trying a new one now and again.